


Might Be Maybe Not

by formerlydf



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-22
Updated: 2008-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formerlydf/pseuds/formerlydf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Patrick asks Andy, "What's up with you and Joe?" Joe, out of sight, blinks and holds his breath, waiting for the answer.</i>
</p><p>Or: It's been a while, but Joe is still figuring some things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Might Be Maybe Not

"So," Joe says.

"So," Andy says. He lies back on the bed, vivid against the beige comforter. Out of the corner of his eyes, Joe sees the numbers change on the clock sitting on the table in between the two beds.

"Want a blowjob?" he asks.

Andy shrugs. "Yeah, why not."

*

"Hey," Pete teases, grinning like the obnoxious fucker he is as Andy wipes Joe's saliva off his skin. Telling someone to lick chocolate syrup off of someone else's stomach is the lamest dare in the history of truth or dare, Joe is sure, and truth or dare is pretty lame to begin with. "You seemed pretty comfortable doing that, Joey."

Pete only used to call him Joey when they were high or drunk or both; now he does it when he's sure Joe won't hit him for it. Joe takes another swallow of beer and says dryly, "Yeah, I just love licking Andy all over. Do it all the time."

The funny thing is, he isn't lying, really, which is why Andy is kind of sort of maybe starting to turn red, just faintly on his cheeks and chest. Andy's the only one Joe knows who blushes with his entire body.

Joe's tasted that blush, working his way down Andy's torso, mapping out his chest with his lips and tongue and sometimes even teeth, if he's feeling particularly bold. He likes to lick Andy's tattoos as if the ink is going to taste different, feel different, under his tongue than the rest of Andy's skin.

"'swhat I'm talking about," Pete declares, and Patrick rolls his eyes.

"You're so out of it."

"Only on my love for you," Pete tells him cheerfully.

"Yeah, fuck you all, it's my turn," Joe says, laughing and shoving Pete and not thinking about the give of Andy's skin under his mouth. "Patrick, truth or dare?"

*

"I could fuck you tonight," Andy says, his shirt riding up as he stretches.

"Way to make a mood, Andrew," Joe snorts, shifting until he's lying upside down.

Andy laughs. "Like you need a mood."

"All the romance has gone out of our relationship," Joe declares despondently, clutching at his heart. "How could this happen?"

Andy shifts over and kisses him upside down, just like Spiderman. "Better?" he asks against Joe's lips. It tickles.

Joe hums thoughtfully and doesn't say anything, but when Andy begins to move away, he reaches out and tugs him closer again. "You're right, I don't need a mood, I think you should fuck me tonight."

Andy laughs. "You're such a romantic, Joe."

*

"What're you doing?"

Joe doesn't glance up at Pete, just keeps his eyes on Andy's arms as they blur against the drums. "Watching Andy practice," he says after a second, because anything else would just be an obvious lie. He's sitting outside the practice room, staring in at Andy. What else could he be doing?

"Why?" Pete asks.

Joe just shrugs. "It's hypnotizing," he says, and it is. Besides, it's not like Pete has any room to talk; sometimes he watches Patrick fiddle on Garageband for the better part of an hour. Andy practicing drums is a lot more interesting than that.

After a second, Pete moves away. Joe doesn't watch him go.

*

"Oh, fuck," Andy says, collapsing back onto the bunk. There's a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Yeah," Joe agrees, shoving his face into Andy's shoulder. "That was pretty awesome."

"You have to show me that thing you did with your hand," Andy tells him seriously.

Joe says, "Yeah, but then you wouldn't need me anymore," and Andy laughs.

*

Patrick asks Andy, "What's up with you and Joe?" Joe, out of sight, blinks and holds his breath, waiting for the answer.

"What do you mean?" Andy asks, his voice perfectly blank.

Joe can't see any of this, but he imagines that Patrick rolls his eyes. "Don't be stupid. What's going on with you two?"

"Nothing," Andy says, "it's nothing," and Joe decides he should stop eavesdropping on other people's conversations. It's rude.

*

"Hi," Joe says into Andy's skin, licking the crease between his thigh and his hip.

Andy jumps and giggles without meaning to, just a high-pitched almost-yelp. "What the hell, dude? I almost kneed you in the face!"

Joe considers this, absently pressing his lips against Andy's thigh, his fingers brushing against the curve of Andy's waist. There's a faded bruise there, thumb-sized. It had been accidental. Joe kisses it.

"Yeah," he says after a second, "you could've."

"I'm sure you wouldn't be so calm if I had broken your nose," Andy tells him, shifting onto his elbows so he can look down at Joe's head, his naked back. Andy reaches out, tracing his hand over the play of muscles under pale skin. Joe shivers, just a little.

"Probably not," Joe says, and licks him again.

*

They started this, whatever this is, when Joe was young, not wildly-illegal young but still young enough that occasionally Andy could get him to come in about four minutes. Even when he was young, though, Joe was old sometimes; nobody ever worried about him like they did about Patrick, not really. Everyone expected Joe to take care of himself, even when he was fifteen and going places he definitely shouldn't have been.

Andy never expected Joe to take care of himself, per se; he knew that Joe could, and would, but all he expected was for Joe to be Joe, and ask for help if he ever needed it. Sometimes Joe did, and sometimes he didn't.

Not the point, though, if there is a point. Just this: it's been a while.

There were no agreements when they started, no cliched "just don't fall in love," nothing like that. It all went unspoken, and it happened rarely enough that they never had to worry about anybody else reading into something that wasn't there. It was just a good way of relieving tension when they were on the road, going a little stir crazy and needing something familiar to hold on to.

And it's easy, always has been, to split into PeteandPatrick and JoeandAndy. It just happens organically, which Joe thinks Andy should appreciate. If Andy thinks about this, which he wouldn't count on. Joe just thinks too much.

He was young, anyway. Now they're less young, and it's more frequent, but they still don't talk about it that much. After all these years, they're probably both expected to know the silent rules by now; the only problem is, Joe's not sure he ever learned them in the first place.

*

"Hey," Andy says one morning, when Joe is slumped over his coffee with one cheek almost resting in his cereal. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Joe says, and in his head he's a little bitter, maybe, but where everyone else can see he just yawns. Andy doesn't get the reference, but then, he wouldn't; he doesn't know Joe was listening. Maybe he wouldn't get it even if he did know; maybe it's not important enough to be in his head for easy reference. "Tired."

"Yeah," Andy agrees. He takes something out of the fridge, some sort of vegan breakfast food that Joe tries never to look too closely at. "Touring is fucking exhausting."

"Yeah," Joe says, even though that's not exactly what he meant. It's true enough, though, enough truth for now.

*

Joe meets a girl one night. She's shorter than he is, brunette, with a dimple in her left cheek and an astonishingly nice ass. Joe talks to her for a while one night; she knows the band, is a casual fan but tries not to make too big of a deal out of the fact that she's talking to Joe Trohman. If she met Pete or Patrick, maybe she would be falling all over herself, but Joe likes that she isn't. Sometimes the crowds are a little weird sometimes; deep down, he's just a short Jewish boy from Chicago who likes to play guitar. He's not _big_. He's not _famous_.

"Well, I had never listened to them before, but then my friend lent me one of their albums and I was hooked," Dakota says — that's the girl, her name is Dakota. Joe doesn't know if it's her real name or not, but he doesn't think it matters. She's sweet; he thinks she's the kind of girl his mom would like, if they ever met.

He's about to respond when she looks over her shoulder and her eyes widen, just the slightest bit. Someone from his band, probably, but Pete and Patrick snuck off somewhere, so that means —

"Hey," Andy says, clapping a hand on Joe's shoulder. "We have to get going."

"We do?" Joe asks, his brain a little muzzy. He hasn't been smoking tonight, but it's in the air. Even taking that into account, though, he thought their call was later.

"Yeah. Come on." Andy glances at Dakota. "Sorry to steal him away. I'm Andy."

"Dakota," she says, and they shake hands briefly.

Joe smiles at her, says, "It was nice talking to you, Dakota," before letting Andy steer him away. When they're far enough away, out of the building and on the sidewalk, he asks, "I thought it was later?"

Andy shrugs, his hand still on Joe's shoulder. "Payback," he says after a second. "Do you know how many times you've cockblocked me recently?"

"I have?" Joe asks, and then thinks, wait, cockblocking? "I wasn't going to sleep with her." He'd thought about it briefly, but his brain kept changing the hair color and adding tattoos. Maybe he would've done it anyway, but he doesn't think so, not when he can get half of what he wants already. It's not all, but it's better than none.

Andy pauses for a moment. "Well, this way we can still be the responsible ones and make Pete and Patrick feel guilty for being late."

"Which they definitely will be," Joe agrees. Andy's hand is warm against his shoulder and he'll settle for half, for now.

*

"We're going to get stuck together," Andy points out, but Joe still can't force himself to move.

"'mcomfortable," he mutters.

"Me too," Andy admits, which makes Joe blink in surprise, his eyelashes brushing against Andy's collarbone. "But it's going to be a pain in the ass in the morning."

"Fine," Joe grumbles, getting off the bed and stretching. He goes into the bathroom and wets a washcloth, lobbing it onto Andy's stomach before splashing a handful of water on his own chest. "Happy?"

"Completely." Andy rolls out of one bed and slides into the other. "You coming?"

"Yeah." They share beds now, sometimes after and sometimes without having done anything. Joe doesn't ask if they're going to anymore, because the answer was always the same and Andy eventually told him not to bother asking. Joe could read something into that, or he could not.

"Good."

*

He overhears Pete and Patrick once, accidentally. Accidental eavesdropping seems to be a talent of his.

Pete says, "Oh, man, I don't know who they think they're kidding. They're so fucked up. I think they're more fucked up than us."

Joe makes a disbelieving face that nobody will ever see.

"I don't think anybody is more fucked up than us," Patrick says dryly, echoing what Joe was thinking. It's true, anyway; sometimes when Patrick gives Joe a look that could be thought of as pitying, Joe just ignores it, thinks, _At least I'm not the one sleeping with a married man._

He never says it, thought, because then he would be an asshole and anyway, Patrick really doesn't deserve it.

*

It's okay, though, it's all okay, because Joe and Andy are the normal ones in the band. They're the laid-back ones, the less intense ones, the ones who get less of the attention and are absolutely fine with it. The sane ones. Patrick's sane too, sometimes, but he's got a short fuse and anyway, he's all drawn up in Pete. You can't separate the two of them, at this point.

Joe and Andy are the sidekicks. There are no epic romances or grand gestures for them, so it's okay. It's okay, it's okay, and Joe still laughs and makes jokes so nobody notices.

It's not — he's not unhappy. He's just a little pensive, sometimes, a little disappointed, but he's not depressed or sulking all the time, because even though Pete likes to say he's contagious, he really isn't.

Well. Maybe only a little bit.

*

"You okay?" Andy asks him once, and Joe nods.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Andy doesn't say anything for a second, just runs a hand through Joe's hair and hums almost silently. "Are you going out tonight?" he asks after a second.

"I don't know. Why?"

This time, Andy actually answers his question. "I just got a bunch of comic books, but I hate binge-reading on my own."

This might be a lie, but Joe says, "Yeah, dude, sure. Sounds fun."

*

"You know," Pete says thoughtfully one day, "Andy watches you practice guitar sometimes."

Joe waits to see if Pete's going to say anything else, but apparently that's it. "Okay?" he asks.

"Yeah," Pete affirms, but Joe just shrugs. If Pete wants him to get it, he's going to have to explain a little bit more than that. He doesn't, though, because it's Pete and cryptic is his first language. Joe is used to that.

*

"Hi," Joe says, resting his forehead on Andy's back, between his shoulder blades. Andy is flushed and warm; it should be too hot in the bed, but it isn't.

"Hi," Andy replies, even though there's no real need to. It's not like either of them have gone anywhere in a couple hours.

Joe is sweaty and his mouth tastes like cock and his cock probably tastes like ass. He breathes out, exhaling onto the skin of Andy's back. They're cuddling, which he thinks isn't normal for two people who are nominally in a "friends with benefits" relationship, but everyone he knows is so far from normal that he figures it probably doesn't matter.

Andy flips over, hitting Joe in the nose with his shoulder before reaching over and wrapping an arm around Joe's waist. Joe settles his head on the pillow, his still-aching nose pressed against Andy's throat, and falls asleep.

*

They're watching a movie one day, just the two of them. It's not just the two of them because Pete and Patrick wandered off; one day, Joe thinks, he and Andy actively started to choose hanging out with each other instead of just being thrust together.

And Andy watches him practice, and tugs him closer even when it's hot and they're in a bed big enough for them to spread out, and makes up excuses to get him away from girls.

And maybe it's not nothing, and maybe there were never any rules to begin with.

It's not an overwhelming realisation, because they're Joe and Andy and don't need epic romances or grand gestures. It's just Joe shifting his head to the side and asking, "Hey, you want to go out to dinner tomorrow night? Like, a date?"

"Yeah, okay," Andy says, and smiles.


End file.
